BUEC 563 Energy Industries and Markets Syllabus
Fall Semester, 2020
Instructor: Hailing Zang
Office Hours: By email request and meet through Google Meet Email: [email protected]
Office: BUS 340-C Phone: 780.492.7720
1. Course Overview
This course provides students with deeper understandings of the energy industry in the electricity, oil, and natural gas markets. The goal of this course is not only to set the current pictures of the energy industry of the Alberta markets, but also to broaden the students’
view of the global market as well as towards the future. The course will be organized in a way to provide much discussion among student peers through case studies and class participations.
2. Course Expectations
After finishing this course, students should be familiar with the construct of the market, the economics behind the market and be able to think through the market equilibrium process.
Students should not only have a fresh understanding about the current energy market conditions, but also should develop a global and forward looking way of thoughts in conducting business in the energy field.
3. Required textbooks
There are no required textbooks for this class, most materials are available online.
Students are encouraged to read news and researches in the industry to keep updated.
4. Prerequisite
BUEC 502 or 503. Not open to students with credit in BUEC560.
5. Evaluations
Exams (60%)
There will be two exams in class time. The first exam will cover the electricity industry and the second exam will cover the oil and gas industry. Each exam is worth 30% of your total mark.
First Exam: October 15 7:30 – 8:30 pm Second Exam: December 3 7:30 – 8:30 pm
Missing exam policy: if 1) you are living a time zone where our lecture time is midnight at your time zone, or 2) you encounter physical difficulties such as illness, you are allowed to submit an individual research paper as a makeup work. Otherwise no makeups for missing exams.
Term Project/Presentation (40%)
You are required to work on one presentation about the energy industry. Anything that interests you in the energy industry could be your presentation topic. The presentation will be in a group project. I will let you know about the maximum number of people allowed and the length of the presentation once the student number settles during the course.
There will be peer valuation for the presentation, where the peer valuation count 25% while the instructor’s valuation counts for the rest 75%. Rubrics of the presentation will be posted on the eClass.
Presentation Date: November 26 in class
6. The Code of Student Behavior
The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behavior (http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/gfcpolicymanual/content.cfm?ID_page=37633) and avoid any behavior which could potentially result in suspicious of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.
Students should not post any recordings online via social media, YouTube or similar services unless expressly permitted by the instructor. Violations of this may be considered a violation of the Code of Student Behaviour.
7. Course Outlines
Week 1: Course overview and introduction Electricity market overview
Why deregulation (Synchronous)
Marginal Cost Calculation (Synchronous) Jargons (Asynchronous)
Economic Principles (Asynchronous) Week 2: Electricity Market Architecture
Bidding Practice (Synchronous) Market Structures (Asynchronous) Week 3: Two-Step Settlement System (Synchronous)
Ancillary service markets resource limits (Asynchronous)
Week 4: Locational Price (Synchronous)
Hedging tools in the market (Asynchronous) Week 5: Special topics in electricity markets (Asynchronous) A Podcast to listen about renewables
Week 6: Renewables impacts to the electricity market Articles to read:
James Bushnell and Kevin Novan, “Setting With The Sun: The Impacts Of Renewable Energy On Wholesale Power Markets”, Energy Institute at Hass WP 292, August 2018
Paul L. Joskow, “Challenges for Wholesale Electricity Markets with Intermittent Renewable Generation at Scale: The U.S. Experience”, MIT CEEPR WP 2019- 001, January 2019
Week 7: Exam I
Class starts at 6:30 Q&A, then exam I starts at 7:30 Week 8: Oil and natural gas industry history (Asynchronous)
Oil and natural gas basics (Asynchronous) Week 9: Oil industry structure (Synchronous)
Week 10: Natural gas industry structure, world oil market (Asynchronous) Week 11: Reading Week
Week 12: World oil and natural gas market (Synchronous) Week 13: Presentation Week
Week 14: Exam II
Class starts at 6:30 Q&A, then exam II starts at 7:30